When Charlotte Church arrives, she starts to cry. “I break down,” she says, “every time I reach here. It’s the first thing I do when I set foot on this soil.” It’s a two-hour drive from her home in Barry to The Dreaming, the retreat centre she opened in 2023, a pilgrimage across Bannau Brycheiniog and into the myth-steeped hills of the Elan Valley in Powys, central Wales. “Two to three weeks,” she’s explaining, icy ground crunching underfoot, “is the longest I can stay away before I start clucking. As I get closer, I feel myself relaxing, a calm coming over me, my nervous system resetting.” That bodily response, she’s sure, is physiological. Tears stream. “This land holds me like nothing else. It feels like coming home; I’m enveloped here.”
It’s early January when I visit. Through the small market town of Rhayader and out into dramatic landscapes, snow-dusted peaks atop rolling hills. A hand-carved sign marks a single-track turning. Through morning mist, The Dreaming comes into view: a three-storey manor almost built into the valley, flanked by moss-lined rocks and woodland. Fresh from being photographed alfresco, Church greets me outdoors: “It’s bloody lush, love, isn’t it?”
